Tuesday, February 16, 2016

David Ramsey recently turned me on to Gravy, the weekly podcast produced by the Southern Foodways Alliance. The SFA, led by the great Southern food writer John T. Edge, also puts out a quarterly with the same name that looks pretty great. (Ramsey has a piece in an upcoming issue.)

I've only listened to a couple of episodes so far, but both were smartly put together and great fun. You'll especially want to check out Episode 30, "The Pull of Pollo," about chicken culture in Springdale and how that's made the area incredibly culturally diverse. I'm eager to check out a grocery store mentioned in the show, Asian Amigo, which, like it sounds like, is half Asian grocery, half Latino.

In 2017, teenagers committed to rehabilitative treatment at two South Arkansas juvenile lockups did not receive basic hygiene and clothing supplies and lived in wretched conditions.

A new lawsuit challenging the state’s photo ID law, Bart Hester vs. the humanities, signs of a threat to governors school, big bills for the state Supreme Court and Clarke Tucker making a run for Congress — all covered on this week's podcast.

A rediscovered violin concerto brings an oft-forgotten composer into the limelight.

My colleagues John Ray and Jesse Bacon and I estimate, in the first analysis of its kind for the 2018 election season, that the president's waning popularity isn't limited to coastal cities and states. The erosion of his electoral coalition has spread to The Natural State, extending far beyond the college towns and urban centers that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. From El Dorado to Sherwood, Fayetteville to Hot Springs, the president's approval rating is waning.

Despite fierce protests from disabled people, the U.S. House voted today, mostly on party lines, to make it harder to sue businesses for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of course Arkansas congressmen were on the wrong side.